Listen: Aimee Mann and Ted Leo team up as The Both, debut new song “Milwaukee”

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`While she’s an Oscar-nominated folk singer and he’s a punk rocker from the Midwest, Aimee Mann and Ted Leo have carved out a solid friendship based on mutual artistic respect. In 2012, after several years of the occasional run-in and communiques via Twitter, they undertook their first proper collaboration by forming a new band, #BOTH. (They’ve since axed the hashtag and now go by the BOTH). In 2013, they hit the road for a series of US dates supplemented by writing and recording sessions on their respective coasts. What was originally intended as a six-song EP to be released last fall has become their self-titled debut, due out April 15th via Mann’s own SuperEgo Records.

In advance, the pair have unveiled one of the album’s 11 tracks, “Milwaukee”, an infectious pop-rock jam marked by sweltering guitar solos and lush vocal interplay. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Leo said the track was written after an accidental visit to the bizarre statue for Happy Days kingpin The Fonz:

“Walking along Milwaukee’s riverfront between sound check and show time last year, Aimee and I were startled by a very disconcerting bronze statue of Arthur Fonzerelli, a.k.a. ‘The Fonz,’ a.k.a. ‘The Bronze Fonz’.” “In that very moment, we knew we had to start a band to immortalize it (more than a bronze statue already immortalizes something), and the Both was born.

“I think the song is a pretty good representation of how our writing meshes on this project – solid melodies and tight harmonies, forward movement but not going off the rails, some busier rocking parts meeting some spookier atmospherics, etc. And it speaks specifically of our friendship and some of the things that honestly did lead us to want to begin writing together.”

Listen below.

The Both Tracklist:
01. The Gambler
02. Milwaukee
03. No Sir
04. Volunteers of America
05. Pay for It
06. You Can’t Help Me Now
07. The Prisoner
08. Hummingbird
09. Honesty Is No Excuse
10. Bedtime Stories
11. The Inevitable Shove